Barriers To Decision Making
- Part 2

More barriers to decision making as well as suggestions about dealing with them...

Help!

Life numbing barriers in decision making is this thing of allowing someone else to make the decision for you. This occurs in a more subtle form when people wait for things to happen as opposed to making them happen. It allows people not to have to take responsibility for themselves and for what occurs.

What happens here, of course, is that you end up living somebody else's life. The answer here is not just to learn how to make decisions, but it takes a major internal shift so that you first of all decide that you actually want to be living your own life.

Faulty models

Some of the available decision making models are themselves decision making barriers. The models may seem rational and sensible but they may not necessarily reflect how humans actually make decisions. With the result that after a few poor decisions, the decision-maker loses confidence and makes decisions reluctantly, if at all.

You've been framed!

The frames that people use for their decisions can act as decision making barriers. 'Not thinking it through' indicates the time frame used was too short. 'What about the others?' suggests that the person is only thinking of themselves. An awareness of the frames being used and whether the decision holds true across many frames are useful considerations.

And you've been trained!

And, of course, the beliefs, assumptions, presuppositions and taboos of our culture may act as hidden barriers to decision making because we accept them unquestioningly. Nothing like a bit of travel between many different cultures to point out to you what your own cultural beliefs are!

Educate yourself

To a large extent, having a working model of decision making and an awareness of the processes at work will allow you to deal with these barriers in different ways. This knowledge will sometimes mean that these barriers to decision making don't even exist.

Read the first page of barriers to decision making...

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